Unwed partners including same sex couples to get legal status
by Gina Doggett
Thursday, February 8, 2007
AFP

Italy unveiled a draft bill that would grant legal status to gay couples after months of debate that has divided the center-left ruling coalition and attracted fierce opposition from the Vatican.

The legislation, one of the coalition's election manifesto promises, would apply to unmarried couples regardless of sexual orientation and even siblings living together, its authors told a news conference following an extraordinary cabinet meeting.

The law, bitterly opposed by the Roman Catholic Church, was hotly debated within the government, which includes far-left components as well as centrist Catholics.

"It's the first time in the legislation of our country that people who live together, heterosexual or homosexual, will have their basic rights recognized," Piero Fassino of the Democrats of the Left party told the news conference.

The bill "allows the recognition of the rights of those who live together by making this cohabitation more serene and solid, and at the same time respecting the Italian constitution, which guarantees that the family is founded on marriage," he said.

Equal Rights Minister Barbara Pollastrini, a co-author of the bill, said: "This draft law, which is a mark of respect and coherence, recognises rights but also duties."

She noted "health assistance, the possibility of making decisions in case of the illness or death of a partner, residence permits (and) inheritance rights" as among the most important entitlements of the proposed legislation.

Concerning duties, the bill calls for "the protection of the weaker partner if after three years of living together the relationship breaks up," for example in the case of a rental contract, she said.

While two-thirds of Italians favor the measure, according to a recent poll, the Vatican sees the planned legislation as an attack on the concept of marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

To satisfy all components of the ruling coalition, the new legislation will result in far less robust civil unions, or PACS, than those that exist elsewhere in Europe.

"This bill is certainly not a PACS, but it still contains important elements, beginning with the recognition of rights for same-sex couples," said Franco Grillini, a Democrats of the Left lawmaker who is honorary president of Italy's main gay rights association Arcigay.

"It's a first important step towards the recognition of rights that at least 20 countries in Europe introduced long ago," Grillini said in a statement,

However unlike the French PACS, the Italian one will also allow "two brothers or two sisters, a niece and her aunt" to enter into civil unions, Family Minister Rosy Bindi, the bill's other co-author.

In addition to health and social benefits, inheritance entitlements will be assured after partnerships lasting at least nine years, Pollastrini said.

A minimum duration of a union in order for a pension to continue to be paid to a surviving partner has yet to be decided.

Under the law, unmarried gay or heterosexual couples would also be accorded some of the rights enjoyed by conventional couples such as hospital and prison visitation rights.

Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, who heads a small Christian Democrat party in the coalition and has repeatedly spoken out against the bill, did not attend the cabinet meeting.